2023.09.02 Parents travel abroad

This year is the hottest summer in Japan's 126-year record. The desk calendar turned to September, and the daytime is still hot. I went to clean the B&B this morning, and the old lady next door pointed to the yellowing leaves in the flower pot and sighed with me, "It's too hot".

In the evening, I go to the supermarket to buy groceries on a routine run, and when I see the shelves of watermelons disappear, I have the real feeling of "summer is over", which is more real than the curtain call of the firework festival. I have had dinner lately. In fact, I haven’t been to the supermarket for a week. “Maybe summer is already over.”

The past July and August were regarded as summer vacations in the Chinese sense, and they were also the busiest two months for me to run a homestay in Japan. I went to ride a bicycle in the mountains of Nagano at the end of July for four days. Cleaning the homestay, leading tourists, day after day, and my parents are counted as goodbye after nearly 4 years after the end of 2019. There are also various netizens, their partners, children, parents, who have been involved in the tourism industry for nearly 4 years, and finally With a bit of international business....

Most of the scenic spots I can take are very familiar. Even if I have never been there, I probably know what it looks like. The more fun is to observe tourists' reactions, interactions, and how to get along with the Japanese environment, including the way they get along with each other internally. For example, between couples, they discuss problems, who talks more, who makes decisions, and who makes more accusations when encountering choices, to speculate on their daily way of getting along, their status and games in the relationship.

But after all, people of the same age usually come into contact with a lot, and the more interesting part is to observe the elders. I myself was born in 1989, and most of the netizens who follow me are from the post-80s and early 90s generation, and my parents are probably post-60s and early 70s. Generally speaking, when talking about class in China, the post-60s generation is relatively cool, especially the highly educated group. The age of joining the work is highly coincident with the reform and opening up. If you take a ride on housing prices in big cities, your quality of life is very good. At this moment of internal and external troubles, we have entered the stage of retirement life and started to enjoy it.

Including my own parents, I am quite touched by the behavior of the post-60s generation in a strange and foreign environment. It is probably the age of the "Chinese aunt" in the stereotype. Although many people can be regarded as "seeing the world" in China, unless they go abroad often, most people feel a little embarrassed or even inferior. They are afraid that they will do something wrong and enter a place that cannot be entered. It may be a bit of a simple idea of ​​"fear of embarrassing the Chinese people", but because of my education or more because of my environment and habits, in fact, it is inevitable to be somewhat confused.

If it's just a distant observation perspective, you can laugh a few words, but if you get along day and night, you will have a lot of understanding, and you are actually very kind people inside. I also feel that if they can go out more often, they will be more natural and open. When they return to China, they can pass on their knowledge and feelings to their relatives and friends, and they can help more people and better understand the world. Maybe even China where I live.

The meaning is the same for the countries they are going to. We will never be able to solve problems through hostility and resistance. In the end, we can only communicate, understand, and agree. Although this road is extremely difficult, the difficult road is often correct, even only one. This is also one of the meanings of my current life, to help more people open a window to observe the outside world. Although after losing my fifth Weibo account and losing interest in registering again, this window is no longer available to me. Infinitely small....

The topic is returned to friends who can take their parents to travel abroad. They are basically like me, around 35 years old, single and without children. From the perspective of traditional Chinese values, this state is "unfilial", and this topic will definitely come up during the trip. Being talked about. But being able to take parents to travel abroad is basically only possible in this state. It’s hard for me to imagine that a family of 7 or 8 people, the elderly, children, or even children without children but with a partner, would leave their wives or girlfriends at home and squeeze out annual leave from their busy work, maybe only once a year. The opportunity to travel abroad is left to my parents...the quarrels that will probably happen behind the scenes, just imagining it makes me suffocate.

I think it is extremely "filial" to be able to take your parents abroad to travel freely and see the world, but if you are married and have children, there is a high probability that you will not be able to do it. It is precisely because of a kind of "unfilial piety" that one can perform a kind of "filial piety". It is also a very interesting paradox. The choices and gains in life, if you think about it carefully, are like a siege and a circle. It has no beginning and no end, and has its own cause and effect.

In an online environment that emphasizes various negative aspects of "original family", being able to take your parents on a trip must be a very good parent-child relationship. No matter how many arguments you have with the outside world, there must be a part in the core that can understand and support each other. Another great pleasure in observing friends who travel with their parents is that they can see that beyond the appearance of parents and children, there are parts of their personalities that are connected and even inseparable, including myself. For example, when I was at home, I was always annoyed that my mother had to clean three times a day, but this time my mother came over and said that I already have mysophobia... I thought about it, although there is a bonus from the service industry, maybe I am actually like this. It's just that the more independent environment makes this aspect of me appear. Although my relationship with my dad has been dominated by fierce conflicts since childhood, and I even think that rebellion against patriarchy is the most important part of male growth, but now I also vaguely feel that the stubborn side of my personality sometimes conflicts with him. Very similar. Of course, it doesn't necessarily have to be a blood relationship, and getting along may have a greater impact.

By the way, I would like to say a few more words about my disdain for the concept of "original family". Even if it really affects you a lot, or even hurts you a lot, people can never change the things they cannot change, they can only change what they can. matter. We can only cherish the opportunity to be born into this world and strive to pursue the value defined by ourselves in our lives. Otherwise, what else can we do except reincarnate and start over? Analyzing this, analyzing that, what's the use of analyzing Potian...

Just like the "Silver Coin of Antonidas" in the wishing fountain in Stormwind City in "World of Warcraft": "Please give me the strength to accept what I cannot change; please give me the courage to change what I can change; and give me I have the wisdom to distinguish the difference between the two." I know the original text is the serenity prayer of the theologian Niebuhr.

A group of netizens we received recently were a family from Nanjing. The group was led by Yixia, a netizen we met on Douban. Her parents are very typical images of parents of our generation, with a nagging, strong and even aggressive mother, a taciturn but... A father who makes his own decisions. Although it was not the first time for her parents to go abroad, it was also the first time for her parents to come to Japan. They had some stereotypes, but during the trip, they were dispelled little by little.

When I went to Kansai Airport to pick up Isha's family on the first day, her mother got in the car and started interviewing me about the situation of nuclear wastewater in Japan. After I gave an in-depth explanation, my aunt was noncommittal and said that the roads in Japan were pretty good. good. But by the second day, it had already entered the stage of "Japan is good" and "Japan is good"...

Let me tell you an interesting story. When I took them to the supermarket, I wanted to buy cucumbers. When my aunt saw that the place of production was Fukushima, she ordered them to put them back. Then the uncle secretly put a box of peaches from Fukushima Prefecture into the shopping basket while the aunt was not paying attention. After returning to the B&B, the aunt found out and was very angry. However, her daughter and husband ate the two peaches quickly, and she could only scold her. The two "radiation men".

My relationship with my aunt became better and better as the trip progressed. I heard her tell a lot about her family and even her family’s past. I learned that some of her immediate family members were killed by the Japanese army when Nanjing fell. Some people even took the initiative. The officer who protected the national army was arrested and killed....It was very touching. She had some stereotyped prejudices and even hostility towards Japan. I think it is very understandable and even sympathetic. But she still chose to come and see this neighboring country, whether she is familiar or unfamiliar, and use her own feet and eyes to judge what kind of country Japan is at the moment.

But also after listening to my aunt, I decided to take a small action, that is, from now on, at the end of the article, when marking the time and place of writing, I will use the Republic of China to record the year. Maybe it doesn't make much sense, the Republic of China has long been a broken basket, and people hate dogs. But it did once, and even now represents the consensus, longing, and ideal of some people. Thinking of many people who died for it when they were younger than me, how should their souls be placed? It can be regarded as doing something in their own way. Remember it. (However, the Republic of China Chronicle cannot be posted on the official account or Douban, so we can only stay outside the wall and make this stubborn change.)

During the one-week journey, my aunt said to me: "Japan is so good, you have stayed for so long, you should take what you have learned back to build China."

Me: "Many people who have this idea are now in prisons in China..."

There was only a long sigh.

On September 3, 112, in Otsu, Shiga